Harris County Precinct 4 will begin relocating to its new service center in October on land west of Hwy. 249 that was annexed into Tomball city limits in May, Commissioner Jack Cagle said.

The service center will house administrative offices and road and bridge crews. While administrative offices will begin relocating this fall, the road maintenance camp—which houses equipment, such as dump trucks, excavators and lawn mowers—will follow in spring 2019, Cagle said. Additionally, plans include adding a fueling station and county dumpster.

The property could also include a courthouse, public library, a branch of the Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts and a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Center, Cagle said. Although discussions are ongoing, there is no timeline for these additional projects.

As Precinct 4 prepares for the 2020 census and subsequent precinct redistricting, Cagle said his team chose to move facilities north from T.C. Jester Boulevard in Houston to a more central location in the precinct.

After a census, each precinct must have an equal population. With an estimated 1.4 million residents today, Cagle said Precinct 4’s anticipated growth spurred the relocation.

“We lost our current major service center and our major administrative building for a few days in the last round of redistricting because of the shifting of the demographics,” Cagle said. “We were pretty much put on notice that in the next round of redistricting that we needed to have an adequate set of facilities that we could serve the community out of in the middle of the precinct.”

Upon relocating, the old facilities will be sold, he said.

Tomball City Council approved Harris County’s request to annex nearly 375 acres in late May. The city will provide water and natural gas services to the development, while the county will maintain its own sewer service, Assistant City Manager David Esquivel said.

“To have the county look at Tomball as they want to have their presence here, I think it speaks a lot about our community,” he said.

Although the newly annexed land will not bring additional property tax revenue to the city—as the county is not a taxpayer—city officials said Tomball residents will benefit from the proximity of Precinct 4 facilities, the availability of emergency response resources—such as vehicles and a fueling site—and the city-county partnership.

“How flattering it should be to the Tomball community that Commissioner Cagle wants to be in Tomball,” City Manager Rob Hauck said.